38 weeks pregnant and I think it’s fair to say I’m so ready for this baby to arrive now!

What’s going on with the baby

He’s pretty much fully formed at this point and is just putting on weight now ready to make his arrival. All his organs are working, and his lungs will just be making their final developments ready for birth. His eye colour at birth will be decided now, although blue eyed babies can still often change to brown within their first year. It’s strange, but it’s one of the things that I’m most curious about with this baby - Max is such a blond, blue eyed boy, while me and his Dad are dark, so I wonder what his brother will look like.

What’s going on with me

It’s been my first week of official maternity leave and it’s been lovely to just have a few days to myself. I’ve used it to fit in all those chores that I’m pretty sure we won’t have time for in the newborn haze. Haircuts for me and Max, getting my eyebrows sorted, batch cooking healthy meals and freezing them in those foil containers - it’s used up the waiting time nicely.

But I’ve found that without the distraction of work, I’ve been far more anxious about things. Every little twinge has me thinking “is this it?”, and I keep having stop-start contractions which come in patterns of about 10 and then just stop. It’s made me realise the reality that my husband’s work is a minimum 1.5 hours away, and my parents (who will be on call to look after Max) are around 40 minutes away, so I’m really hoping that things don’t kick off too quickly once they get going for real. I’m conscious that Max arrived fairly swiftly, so I’m hoping to get a few proper twinges before we need to get to the hospital.

I’ve also reached the point where I’m uncomfortable all the time, and any degree of movement is really painful. Before now I’ve been spending time sitting on the birthing ball, but now even that is painful, and it feels like my body is about to split in two. I’m trying to keep active, but I’m also conscious that I don’t want to stray too far from home, so Max and I have just been heading into our local town or pottering in the garden rather than anything more exciting. Another reason I hope this baby arrives soon, as I think Max is getting fairly bored!

Did you catch my 37 week pregnancy update? You can read it here